The letters

The Guardian (Nigeria), May 7, 2010

SIR: Several years ago, the United Nations Industrial Development Organisation (UNIDO) reported that about $107 billion of Nigerian money was held in private accounts and assets in the United States and Europe. More recently, the Global Financial Integrity (GFI) think tank showed that Nigeria lost $89.5 billion in illegal outflows to developed nations, between 1970 - 2008. The other week, Nigerian newspapers published the names of 80 prominent Nigerians who were alleged to have partaken in the Halliburton N27 billion NLNG bribe. Included in this list, are four former heads of state, to former first ladies, a former vice president and 74 other prominent compatriots from every region of Nigeria.

These reports beg the questions: Is the arrest and prosecution suspected of corruption the only tool capable of checking and ameliorating the plague of corruption in the past 50 years? Is it realistic to believe that any Nigerian government in the near future will arrest and prosecute the 80 Nigerians - those that are alive amongst them - fingered in the Halliburton bribe scandal? How about the tens of billions of dollars stashed away by corrupt officials abroad? Will only a policy of arrest and prosecution of corrupt officials lead to the repatriation of these monies back to Nigeria for desperate development.

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